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The Danish Geodata Agency (Geodatastyrelsen), a part of The Danish Ministry of the Environment, has created a 1:1 model (English) of Denmark in Minecraft (English via Google Translate link) based on their publicly available data of Denmark, such as elevation models and data about roads and buildings. There is a YouTube video.
A coordinate system has been introduced so you can find your way around or locate and visit a specific place. From what I have read so far, it's not clear how you go from latitude and longitude to that coordinate system. It's 1TB of data, so I'm not going to download it just to try it out. If you're looking for places to visit, "The Little Mermaid" should be at 55.692867° N 12.599258° E and Kronborg Castle should be at 56.039036° N 12.621156° E.
Last year the UK had their own version. As much as I'd like to get my hands on a full-sized 3D map of somewhere, I can't see that Minecraft is ever going to be the best medium for it.
Please note that their Minecraft server is just a demo. It will shut down October 23, 2014. After that only smaller pieces of data will be available.
(Score: 3, Informative) by irfan on Saturday April 26 2014, @09:31AM
One school already uses Minecraft in teaching mathematics. With this Minecraft map, it just becomes more engaging for the students, when they can work with measurements in their own local neighbourhood. Another example is a combined virtual and physical world treasure hunt, where the students first search for the treasure in game, and then afterwards go out in the real world and search for it. Yet another example is in danish lessons. All streets and places in the Minecraft map have signs [gamepedia.com] with the name of the road plus the house number. This can serve as a discussion for e.g. why is there a "Mosevej" (en:mire road) in many danish cities? (hint: Denmark is a country of mires). I think the possibilities are endless.
I do agree with you and the GP though, that we still need a proper 3D explorer for geodata. The Minecraft thing, probably is best suited for kids. Fortunately all of Denmarks raw geodata are freely available from The Danish Map Supply [kortforsyningen.dk], including height models (DHM, Danish Height Model) and whatnot, needed for building such a 3D explorer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 26 2014, @10:19AM
Well, what are we waiting for [youtube.com]?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford